This is the last honest look I'll ever give
by smaragdbird
Summary: One by one his children were taken away. background Thor/Loki


Loki was very young when he had Sleipnir, the Asgardian equivalent of an early teenage pregnancy. Brought on by Loki's desire to prove himself, to prove that his magic was just as useful as anything Thor could do.

The birth was long and difficult and Loki was barely conscious afterwards, not noticing that Sleipnir had been taken away.

When he woke up his mother sat by his side, stroking his hair. Her face was so sad that Loki's insides clenched in fear.

"Where is he?" He knew it was a boy, had known from the first moment.

"He's fine, Loki", his mother assured him. "Sleep now, you need to rest."

I want to see him, Loki wanted to say but sleep claimed him before he could.

They never allowed him to see Sleipnir in the first weeks and no one in his family understood why Loki needed to see him so badly.

"It's just a horse", Thor pointed out.

"He's my son", Loki argued.

"It's a monster", Asgard said. So Loki slipped into the stable at night or when his father and brother were too occupied to notice him missing.

/

Of Fenris they made him feel ashamed.

"The child of a fire-giant, Loki?" Odin asked him, disappointment heavy in his voice. "Do you possess no shame? No dignity?"

"Another monster", the court whispered and Loki didn't even fight when they took Fenris from him, small, innocent Fenris and put him in chains far, far away from Asgard.

"There's nothing wrong with you", Loki whispered into Fenris' fur, half to convince his son and half to convince himself. His father's disappointment and his mother's sadness filled him with as much shame as his children filled him with love.

Sometimes he managed to bring Sleipnir along with him on the fast, hidden paths around Asgard that only he saw. Then he watched his sons race each other over barren fields and stony landscapes and later sung to Fenris the same songs his mother had used to lull him to sleep before bringing Sleipnir back to the stables and leaving Fenris chained in the loneliness between the worlds.

/

For Jörmungadr he fought. His child by a dark-elf whose name Loki couldn't remember anymore, barely s big and long and Loki's arm when he was born. He curled against Loki's body and Loki fought for him when they came to take him, fought with magic and tooth and nail.

"You cannot keep him", his mother tried to reason with him.

"Why not? Because then you would have to acknowledge him as your kin?"

"He's not like us."

"Because he looks like a snake? He's half me. Why is that not enough?"

Frigga never answered his question and in the end Odin ripped Jörmungadr from Loki's arms and threw him out into the vast ocean between the worlds.

Jörmungadr, though, was happy there. So much to see, so many strange, unseen things to explore.

He came back when Loki waited for him at the shore. Stretching out under the Asgardian sun with his head in Loki's lap while Loki read to him tales, old and new, from all nine realms. Afterwards Jörmungadr would curl himself against Loki's chest and write with his tail into the sand that Loki shouldn't be sad, that things would be better some day and that they would all be together then.

/

When Loki saw Hel for the first time he was relieved. Hel looked like a normal child except maybe for the dark shimmer over one side of her body but that would not enough to take her away from him , would it?

When his father and mother came to see him they still looked sad but no one tried to take her away from him. Even Thor was happy to hold her, saying that she would be a great warrior like Sif (not if Loki could help it).

The dark shimmer on her skin darkened until it was completely black but Loki didn't care and not many others did. She raced around with Fenris and Sleipnir, learned writing from Jörmungadr and magic from Loki.

"She will be a fine queen one day", Thor told him one day, acknowledging Hel's claim to the throne even when their mother and father had never uttered a single word about it.

Loki didn't care about that, not yet, not when he could finally watch a child of his grow and learn without having to sneak out and lie to do it. They had made him the God of Lies out of necessity.

But in the end Hel was still taken from him.

"Please, she looks like us, please you can't take her, please", Loki pleaded with his father.

"You should have studied the laws of the light elves before conceiving a child with one of them", he told Loki and added softly, "There's nothing I can do. I'm sorry."

"Shell will be the Queen of Nilfheim", his mother tried to reassure him. Even Thor looked uncomfortable.

"Is there no other way, father?" He asked. "No other warden we can send to Alfheim?"

"No, I am sorry", but Loki had long since learned to distinguish between the truth and lies and his father's words were both at once.

They led Hel away through the Bifröst and her little hand, outstretched towards him was the last thing Loki ever saw of her.

/

Loki lay with Thor only once and afterwards erased his brother's memories of said night. Thor had barely ever cared for Loki's children and Loki wanted to spare himself the pain. He had no reason to believe that Thor would act differently for his own child.

Loki knew that they wouldn't let him keep this child either, Thor's child, heir to the throne but he would decide his child's fate this time, not Odin. He hid the pregnancy for as long as he could and then travelled to Midgard, disguised as a woman and left it there. He took all magic from it, everything that would make him different from any other human except one.

"I cannot be with you but no matter where you will go in life and what you will do, you will always be loved", after all what else had he ever given his children but that?


End file.
